On a sandy ground, the harvests were meagre and required a lot of expensive fertilizers, and the small farmers couldn't afford them most of the time. In 1853, the potato disease affected both quantity and quality. On the following year, half the harvest is lost and the peasants were reduced to begging in the big farms. Sometimes threatening, they obtained a little rye, oats and some supplies. Iin 1857, a survey shows that there aren't problems with this disease anymore and that the harvests are good.